A little while ago I did a piece on American plus size fashion and it is now time for me to restore the balance and write about British plus size clothes...
In the past couple of years there has been a big development in the number of on line retailers are solely dedicated to plus size clothes here in the UK, some say that this is to keep overweight and obese people away from the high street, leading to further alienation... I say to hell with that - we've got a better range of shops!

Sadly the high street has lost a couple of good plus size ranges in the last couple of years. First Evans scrapped their Seven range, I personally think they should have sacked their designers and Etam removed itself from the UK. Those of us lucky to live in cities still have a reasonable range of shops to pick from, where as those in small towns are probably lucky to get a tiny Evans...

The On line Stores

My personal favourites for on line plus size shopping heaven are Big Girls Wardrobe and Simply Be. Big Girls Wardrobe is very reasonably priced and up to date with current fashion trends and has an excellent range of gorgeous tops! And there is Simply Be which has some gorgeous and sumptuous items, but sadly is rather expensive. It is also the only on line retailer to offer the sexy Anna Scholz collection, which once again is too expensive. Definitely on to shop at for those special occasions...

Others worth checking out are Pinc Clothing, which has quite a wide range of clothing, however I am put off by the poor pictures and the some what messy look to the website. Picky I know, but one redeeming quality is that they actually have a shop! A rarity and probably worth checking out if you live in wales...

I also highly recommend Bonprix which is actually a French company, that has a .co.uk address, but they post stuff from France... Anyway wherever they are you don't get charged high postage and there are no import charges to pay. Bonprix has a plus size collection and quite a lot of their regular collection is also available in larger sizes. Most importantly the clothes they sell are gorgeous every day wear! They seem to be lacking and evening collection and you have to email them to get a size chart... But they are so cheap, you can't complain really...

If you are after a way around of getting some American plus size clothes without paying through the roof in postage and import costs then check out the following links:

They sell a lot of clothes from Igigi, Size Appeal and a limited amount of B&Lu clothes, full price some of their items may seem too expensive, but wait until Sale time and you could well get a sexy item at half the price!

The High Street

Well I guess I have to start with the Uk's most well known and perhaps biggest plus size retailer. Evans.

I have a love/hate relationship with Evans. Mainly because I think they aim too old and at 27 I am just not ready to become a frump. The love/hate comes from that one season they will produce some excellent, young and sexy clothes, the next flowery tents are all the rage. Now you could argue that it is the changing fashion trends that leads to this, but it is more likely that their designers are not equipped to supply a younger generation with clothes. It seems to me that the plus size market is well geared to providing clothes for the older plus size woman and the range for younger women is very poor. And as I have mentioned here a few times, I am still angry that Evans scrapped their Seven range - it needed a rethink, rather than binning it altogether.

All of that aside, Evans does have an extensive range in their bigger stores and it is the only retailer solely committed to plus size clothes in the high street, across the country and that is an achievement.

For the younger plus size woman New Look and Mark One both have plus size ranges aimed towards a younger market (however thats not exclusively, they do have items suitable for all ages whither that is conscious or not I am not sure...).

There is also Mackays, which has some lovely items and Marks and Spencers plus size range, which for me personally I am not impressed by, but it does have some smart and simple pieces, which would make excellent office wear.

Well that is my current plus size clothes review and rant over with. I still need look at the big catalogues and I am intending to do a piece about alternative plus size sellers...

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